North Korea Is Now Threatening a Preemptive Nuclear Attack

By Dashiell Bennett

March 7, 2013

While the U.N. Security Council has voted for harsh new sanctions against North Korea, that nation's military has found a way to take its fighting words to yet another hyperbolic level. In a press statement complaining about both the sanctions and ongoing military exercises by the U.S. and South Korea, the DPRK says "it will fully display the might of Songun it built up decades after decades and put an end to the evil cycle of tension." The statement also breaks out—literally—the North's biggest gun in the threat of "a preemptive nuclear attack."

First, now that the U.S. is set to light a fuse for a nuclear war, the revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK will exercise the right to a preemptive nuclear attack to destroy the strongholds of the aggressors and to defend the supreme interests of the country.

Before you climb into your bomb shelter its important to note that the North has shown no ability to launch a missile that can either carry a nuclear warhead or reach the United States. It also seems unlikely that they would annihilate Seoul, despite numerous threats to do so in the past. However, the talk of nullifying the 60-year-old cease fire agreement and jumping in a second Korean War is worrying, particularly with American, North, and South Korean soliders and sailors conducting their drills in such close proximity. The North began its own military exercises this week, in response to the annual joint war games that the South is holding with the U.S. over the next two months. (Earlier this week, the same DPRK leaders threatened to tear up the first Korean War's armistice agreement if the operations didn't stop.) If any of those ships happen to wander to close to each other or someone shoots the wrong way, there very well could be a bad incident that might lead to an escalation.